"Covid policies could cost lives"

Recently, I presented to the hospital at night with my infant baby after they had what appeared to be a seizure in my arms. (They have had two previously).

I had to hit the buzzer to talk to triage from outside the hospital. I told them what happened and the age of my baby and the staff member proceeded to ask me Covid screening questions.

I obliged for about 2 minutes. The staff member was struggling to understand me through the speaker as I was becoming emotional at the situation. I eventually raised my voice and said “I've just told you my child with a history of seizures has just had one and you’re asking me continuous Covid questions”. They said it’s just protocol and we have to do it.

[I can understand some questions but they seemed to go on and on, and with the situation at hand, I’d say this is a more pressing issue.]

Once in, I recall I was told that it was for the greater good of the community that I needed to be asked so many questions, but don’t worry we will just have to ask them inside.

Now I understand that Covid situation, especially with country hospitals, but I believe it shouldn’t take precedence over a baby potentially facing something serious. Treat us as though we have Covid if you must, but in my opinion don’t make someone wait so long in order to ask questions that really were answered in full within the first 4 questions that seemingly had nothing to do with what my baby was immediately facing.

They did relevant checks of heart rate and a urine sample which were all good (thankfully), though I mentioned that my baby had a long history since their last infection and seizures of having high blood pressure. 

I felt the nurse laughed at me and told me that it’s hard to get a good reading of blood pressure and so that was unlikely.

I let them know that it was taken of 4 days every few hours while my baby was sick in a different hospital at 6 weeks and then continued to have hospital monitoring of bp over the next 5 weeks where my baby then had to spend a further 2 days in hospital as they had continued high bp. I also mentioned that in a few weeks my baby has to fly to Perth for follow up on their liver and to have their BP rechecked.

They still didn’t check my baby's blood pressure even after all of that information.

I felt the doctor who was called in was nice enough to put me at ease and told me I had done the right thing and brought the baby in. This made me feel slightly better as I honestly felt like the nurse treating us didn’t want us there and that the baby was clearly happy and healthy. 

I believe the system in place which keep me patients waiting outside and had far too many Covid questions which took up too much time as well as being made to feel like I was wasting the hospitals time is not good enough. It honestly made me feel like I would not want to go back there if I was unsure about my babies health in case they were to judge me for returning. 

With a baby with ongoing health concerns I am concerned about the care, or lack of, for the future. When speaking with others in town about this I found out this is not uncommon practice for people to be made to feel this way as well as having to wait long amounts of times answering questions when there is a medical emergency taking place.

I believe something needs to change. In my opinion it really isn't good enough.